How To Use Windows 10 File History Feature

Hello guys! In this article we will show you how to use Windows 10 file history. File history in Windows 10 has the same concept as the previous version. File history feature allows you to back up your data. If you edit a particular folder or delete it, you can easily revert back in time and get that folder back. It’s like a time machine, so we will show you guys how to configure it.

This will only work with an external hard drive. It’s not going to work with a flash drive, so make sure you have an external drive that’s big enough to back up all your information. In our case we have an external hard drive which is about a terabyte size.

Okay, so it’s really simple to set up your File History/Previous Version within Windows 10. You need to go inside your Notification Center, go to All settings, then click on Update & Security. Now, go to Backup and in the right section you need to click on Add a drive. It’s going to give you a list of all the drives that you have. Make sure that you have an external hard drive and then choose it. Now, it automatically turns on back up of your files, but it’s going to choose all the default folders.

If you don’t want those folders to be backed up, just click on More options and you will see an overview. Your data hasn’t been backed up yet, but you can click on the Back up now button and it will back up everything.

But you probably want to know what is going to be backed up. So, scroll down and you will see those folders. It’s a default list, so you can change it. Just add or remove folders to customize this list.

You can even exclude folders that you don’t want. Also, you can back up your folders to a different drive. You will need to stop use the drive by clicking on appropriate button. After that you will be able to back up your folders to a different drive.

Now, let’s check out Advanced settings. It will open up another window and from here you can see that File History is on. Also, you can check the drive that you use or even change that drive.

From here you can also exclude folders from File History. This more like an advanced option, less of intense GUI. If you want to restore stuff, go to Restore personal files and it will give you a list of everything that’s been backed up.

Now, we want to show you guys how it actually looks. So let’s go inside our File Explorer and let’s go inside our Downloads folder. After that, right click and go to Properties. You are going to see a new option which says Previous Versions. If you click on it, you can select one of the versions that have been backed up earlier.

If you want to see how that folder looked earlier, click on Open in File History. As you can see, you got a nice little GUI within Windows 10, which is awesome. In our case, this folder is empty.

That’s it. Now you know how to use File History feature. But if you have some troubles with it, feel free to leave comments in the section below.